Prose written to describe, argue, reflect on or report the actual world rather than to narrate invented events, spanning forms from the personal essay and memoir to travel writing, criticism, oratory and correspondence collected and read as literature. The genre's boundary with fiction is a matter of the writer's claim about the world rather than of style: nonfiction prose can be as formally inventive, as digressive or as image driven as any novel, and the epistolary form crosses the boundary in both directions, since a real letter collection and a novel written as invented letters share a form while making opposite claims about what actually happened.
Facts
Partially Attested
Place of OriginNo single point of origin across the many forms this genre gathers (essay, oratory, memoir, criticism and more); its most influential form, the essay, is credited to the Frenchman Michel de Montaigne, the first author to describe his own work as essays. 1 Nonfiction Prose gathers many distinct forms (essay, oratory, memoir, history, criticism) with no single shared point of origin; this fact names the origin of the essay, its most influential constituent form, rather than the genre as a whole. Notable ExampleMichel de Montaigne, Essais (1580), the first work to describe itself as essays 1 Defining TraitWriting that attempts, in good faith, to convey information about the real world rather than being grounded in imagination. 2 Nonfiction Prose
Filter Results4 entries
Connections
Encompasses Form
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Haibun, Forms Source The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Features Author
Source Albert Camus (Britannica)
Source Andre Breton (Wikipedia)
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Source Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (Wikipedia)
Source I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Wikipedia)
Source Jean-Paul Sartre (Britannica)
Nature, Works Source Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (1836)
Source Wikipedia: Oku no Hosomichi
Source Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1841)Thomas Carlyle
Source Bronson Alcott (Wikipedia)
Source Out of Africa (Wikipedia)
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Biographia Literaria already in-genre Nonfiction Prose; Coleridge himself carried no in-genre edge to it.
Source Wikipedia: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Source Simone de Beauvoir (Britannica)
Source The Fire Next Time (Wikipedia)
Source Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History (1837)Thomas Carlyle
Source Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
Source The Prince (Wikipedia)
Source Jean-Paul Sartre, The Words (1963)
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Source Woman in the Nineteenth Century (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Essay
Wikimedia FoundationLead section
The Frenchman Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) was the first author to describe his work as essays
Definitions section
The Frenchman Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) was the first author to describe his work as essays; he used the term to characterize these as "attempts" to put his thoughts into writing.
View the Source 2. Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.s.v. Nonfiction
Any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to convey information only about the real world, rather than being grounded in imagination.
- Encompasses Form: The Essay, s.v. Essay
- Encompasses Form: The Epistolary Form, s.v. Epistolary Novel
- Features Author: Biographia Literaria
- Features Author: Thomas Carlyle
- Encompasses Form: Fu (Chinese Rhapsody)
- Encompasses Form: The Parable
View the Source The Norton Anthology of World Literature
W. W. Norton & CompanyNonfiction Prose entry
Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History (1837)
Thomas Carlyle, 1837Features Author: The French Revolution: A History
Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1841)
Thomas Carlyle, 1841Features Author: On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History
Simone de Beauvoir (Britannica)
Features Author: Simone de Beauvoir
Jean-Paul Sartre, The Words (1963)
Features Author: The Words
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
Features Author: The Myth of Sisyphus
Jean-Paul Sartre (Britannica)
BritannicaFeatures Author: Jean-Paul Sartre
Albert Camus (Britannica)
BritannicaFeatures Author: Albert Camus
Andre Breton (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)Features Author: Andre Breton, Opening paragraph, Surrealist ManifestoQuote, Features Author: Andre Breton, Opening paragraph, Surrealist Manifesto
His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto (Manifeste du surrealisme) of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism".
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)Features Author: Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Futurism section, Futurist ManifestoQuote, Features Author: Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Futurism section, Futurist Manifesto
Marinetti is known best as the author of the Futurist Manifesto, which he wrote in 1909.
Wikipedia: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)Features Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Opening section, major prose workQuote, Features Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Opening section, major prose work
Coleridge wrote the poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, as well as the major prose work Biographia Literaria.
Woman in the Nineteenth Century (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Lead section, essay originQuote, Features Author: Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Lead section, essay origin
first published as an essay titled The Great Lawsuit in the Transcendentalist magazine The Dial in July 1843, then substantially expanded and republished in book form under its current title in 1845
The Prince (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: The Prince, Lead section, genreQuote, Features Author: The Prince, Lead section, genre
is a 16th-century political treatise written by the Italian diplomat and political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Lead section, genreQuote, Features Author: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Lead section, genre
is a 1969 autobiography describing the young and early years of American writer and poet Maya Angelou
Out of Africa (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: Out of Africa, Infobox, Genre fieldQuote, Features Author: Out of Africa, Infobox, Genre field
Memoir
The Fire Next Time (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: The Fire Next Time, Infobox, Genre fieldQuote, Features Author: The Fire Next Time, Infobox, Genre field
Essays
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (1836)
Features Author: Nature, Lead section, genreQuote, Features Author: Nature, Lead section, genre
Nature is a book-length essay written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, published by James Munroe and Company in 1836.
Wikipedia: Oku no Hosomichi
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: Oku no Hosomichi, Lead section, formQuote, Features Author: Oku no Hosomichi, Lead section, form
a prose and verse travel diary
Bronson Alcott (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: Orphic Sayings, Transcendentalist section, genreQuote, Features Author: Orphic Sayings, Transcendentalist section, genre
Alcott also wrote a series patterned after the work of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe which was published in the Transcendentalists' journal, The Dial.
Walden (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: Walden, Infobox, Genre fieldQuote, Features Author: Walden, Infobox, Genre field
Memoir
The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Princeton University PressEncompasses Form: Haibun
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